By Tim Hage on May 13th, 2010 at 12:10PM
With the blinding success of MW2‘s first map pack, Activision has quickly announced their plans for map pack #2. The “Resurgence Pack” will bring five new maps to the MW2 online experience. The pack will be hitting Xbox Live on June 3rd and it’s safe to assume it will later hit PC, costing the same $14.99 as The Stimulus Package.
By Craig Lloyd on May 12th, 2010 at 4:43PM
Epic Vid of the Week is a weekly series that showcases an awesome video that we or our readers discover. Some you may have seen before and others you may have not. If you’ve discovered any videos that are worthy of an Epic Vid of the Week title, let us know!
For the record, this doesn’t mean that we endorse or are fans of Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show by any means. We just thought this epic vid was really funny. Seeing some of our favorite celebs getting the crap scared out of them is pretty entertaining. Enjoy:
By Tim Hage on May 12th, 2010 at 4:24PM
That’s right. To celebrate the release of Steam for Mac, Valve announced today that their first-person puzzler known as Portal will be offered at $0.00 until May 24th. For the most part, it’s a nice trick to get gamers into the Portal world so that they pre-order Portal 2, but it’s still a free game. Advertising doesn’t get much better than this, nor does gaming. So, if you haven’t played what is quite possibly the best game ever, then you’d better have a darn good excuse to not download it now. Head over to Valve’s landing page and grab yourself Portal at no cost.
By Tim Hage on May 12th, 2010 at 1:51PM
After least week’s leak of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood details, Ubisoft has officially released details pertaining to the game and what we should expect from it. Brotherhood will continue to focus on Ezio, the Animus protagonist from Assassin’s Creed 2, in the city of Rome. As the game’s title would suggest, Ezio is no longer working alone, but details on this aspect are a bit bare except that you will be able to have other characters assist you in missions, or send them to different parts of the city.
Many aspects and even some allies from the previous game will be returning in Brotherhood, but the biggest new feature is the addition of multiplayer, which is still mostly unknown except that there will be multiple gametypes and a class-based system that allows for some personalization as far as weapons.
via [Game Informer]
By Tim Hage on May 11th, 2010 at 9:58PM
After just one week, the pay-what-you-want Humble Indie Bundle managed to raise over $1 million, 30% of which is headed straight to charity. The developers of these great indie games will now release Lugaru HD, Gish, Aquaria, and Penumbra Overture as open source, allowing other aspiring indie developers to use the games’ engines as a base. Also, to celebrate the mind-blowing success, the bundle will get a three-day extension. So, if you missed your chance at these games the first time around, you still have a little bit of time to grab them now!
via [Big Download]
By Craig Lloyd on May 11th, 2010 at 9:31PM
Firefox Director Mike Beltzer presented his plan of the next big version of Mozilla’s browser, Firefox 4, on his personal website. According to the presentation, Mozilla will focus on simplifying the browser’s UI and make it easier to personalize and customize the browser. They’re also going to take some ideas out of Google Chrome’s book by putting the tabs above the address bar. Now, before you call copycat on Mozilla, both Opera (in 10.5) and Safari (4.0 beta) have done this.
For all the devs out there, Mozilla will improve support for HTML5, including CSS3, SMIL and CSS Transitions. Firefox 4 will also include more developer tools that can be used for debugging and analyzing webpages. The new version will also offer hardware-accelerated Direct2D rendering and obviously a faster JavaScript engine.
Mozilla’s plan is to start the beta program in late June with a release candidate in October and a final version shortly following. However, Beltzer made clear that this schedule is subject to change.
via [CNET]
By Tim Hage on May 11th, 2010 at 1:09PM
Bethesda today announced the details of Fallout: New Vegas‘ special edition release. Priced at $69.99 (according to GameStop) for PC gamers, the Collector’s Edition comes with some casino chips, a deck of cards with pictures of characters and factions found within the game, a prequel comic and tons more. Follow the break for all the details and a picture of the pack.
By Craig Lloyd on May 11th, 2010 at 1:13AM
We’re back for another OliveCast brought to you by the deadly dual of Tech Olive. We let you guys know what we’ve been up to and give you a sneak peek on the Mad Catz Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 controller. We also discuss Iron Man 2 and digital distribution, as well some new things going on with the site.
Hosts: Craig Lloyd and Tim Hage
Music: Cool Cavemen
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00:47 – What we’ve been up to
07:11 – Sneak peek at Mad Catz’s MW2 Xbox 360 Controller
12:19 – Iron Man 2 Review
24:04 – Editorial: Are CDs/DVDs Headed Out the Door?
28:22 – Site News
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By Craig Lloyd on May 10th, 2010 at 7:10PM
Starting in either June or July, Google plans to sell digital copies of books for e-readers. Users will be able to search and purchase e-books through Google’s current book search service. Book retailers will also be able to sell Google Editions of books on their own websites, giving partners most of the revenue.
Just today, it’s said that Google has been backed by almost all the publishers in the U.S., which is over 25,000 publishers and authors. This brings the number of books that will be available to over 4 million. However, the only official word we’ve heard from Google about all of this is that the service would be coming this summer, nothing else.
via [WSJ and Japan Today]
By Tim Hage on May 10th, 2010 at 5:07PM
After the disappointing release of Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Ubisoft’s announcement of Conviction came with many worries for long-time Splinter Cell fans. As it sounded, Ubisoft was effectively planning to water-down the series to achieve wider appeal. Has the series changed for the good? Or have they just made it more generic and as a result, alienated original fans of the series? Time to find out.
